Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7107909" data-attributes="member: 29398">But what you as player don't and can't know is whether those orcs were going to show up anyway, be it through this particular failed check or through some other means.And this exact same scenario could have been played out in any RPG system you like - including all editions of D&D - through straight role-play without the nuisance of mechanics.You play your character as you did, trying your best to persuade the Elf to accompany you.  Nothing would change there.  However the DM, putting himself in the shoes of this Elf noble and thinking about what else said Elf noble might have on his plate at the time including a return to Celene preferably sooner than later, concludes that the Elf leader hasn't got time for you and simply role-plays that he declines your request.  How polite that refusal is might be influenced by your approach and politeness, the Elf's inherent personality as decided (probably then and there unless this Elf has been met before) by the DM, and a bunch of other things even down to the weather conditions (people are generally in better moods in fair weather and fouler moods in poor or excessively hot or cold weather).Benefits here:- the role-played conversation probably takes somewhat less time than the dice-rolling you were doing- as opposed to the hard-closure you faced, a role-played persuasion attempt leaves the door open for other options e.g. you offer to accompany him to Celene if in return he will on arrival there either send some retainers to accompany you to your home or come himself if you can wait a few days for him to deal with his deceased friend- it stays in character / immersion, rather than breaking out to go to mechanics.With this I largely agree, regardless of game system.There's a flip side, however, also true in any system: though as DM you probably want the goal to remain as a goal (rather than an achievement) as long as possible in order to keep the campaign going, you also want to at least make it seem as though the goal is now and then getting closer; that progress is being made.  Nothing's worse than having a clear goal in mind and watching it get further away as you go along. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />This counts as going to the action?Oh the excitement! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />So in effect they're both your characters.The example would be far more interesting were Aramina someone else's PC.Lan-"seven mentions in here in two days - reporting for duty!"-efan</blockquote>

Verification